Chapter Text
And unto a Saint, a child was born.
All births are miracles, of course, but by all accounts it should have been a first-class miracle.
Saints are rare, but for saints to bear children themselves is even rarer. And for a saint to give birth to royalty should have been an even grander event.
But the saint gave birth in private, and the birth itself was hidden.
Even the mother of the child was kept secret. As far as the world knew, the girl - the daughter of a living Saint - was nothing more unusual than the heir to the throne of a mountain kingdom
Which is how, at the age of six months, the great kingdoms of the world converged on Goredd, to celebrate the all-too-ordinary recognition of a first-born heiress, rather than the miraculous birth of the child of a saint.
There would be celebration. There would be feasting. There would be roasted calfs and imported fruits and cakes. There would be songs, and speeches, and gifts. And all the people of the kingdom would rejoice.
Mainly for the cake.
***
"Open up," Glisselda clucked at her daughter. She held out a spoonful of stewed winter apple. "Open up for the little bird. Whoop, whoop, whoop." Zythia made a face, and Glisselda put a scoop in her own mouth to demonstrate the concept. "Mmm. Yummy," Glisselda said with a full mouth.
"I don't think it works that way," Phina said, sitting down beside her. "At least, it didn't for me."
It was easy to forget that Phina could remember her infancy. "Then what did?"
"Not much," Phina admitted. "I was a fussy baby." She sat in front of their daughter. "Here, I'll feed her. You need to get ready for another day of the christening." There was tension in her voice, even if she tried to conceal it.
"It's going well," Glisselda said assuringly. "And the music yesterday was lovely. Everyone said so."
"It's not the music that concerns me," Phina said.
Glisselda attempted to smile. It felt fake. The truth was, there were still a large number of enemies present. The combined forces of the Saints might have ended any immediate fights, yet tensions between the Old Ard and Sons of Saint Ogdo, between Goredd and the other countries in the Southlands, and between all of the forces in the Tanamoot, most of which Glisselda still didn't understand, remained. And that ignored domestic tensions, which Phina - for all her strengths - didn't even seem aware of. Dame Okra had caught one assassination attempt already, a blackhand sent by a distant relative who thought it would be a good idea to get a jumpstart on his claim to the throne.
Dame Okra, who, after a century of near exile, had just gone to visit her newborn namesake. Dame Okra deserved her time away.
"Leave the christening to me," Glisselda said.
"Do you think anyone knows about us?" Phina persisted.
Deep thoughts before breakfast, Glisselda mused. Usually, it was Lucian who brought the mood down.
"I'm sure no one does." She kept her tone light. Truth to be told, she would rather have not had to disguise the identity of her firstborn, but, as complicated as her life was, she wouldn't have had it any other way. "My family has kept secrets before. That's the beauty of a royal christening ceremony. Tonight, after the christening, everyone will pledge their loyalty to Zythia. Anyone who wants to challenge her after that will have to fight with all of Goredd, not just with our family."
"We only have a day to go," Phina said gloomily. She turned back to their daughter. "Open up," she cooed, in a tone similar to Glisselda's own. Not surprisingly, Zythia didn't respond.
***
Magrat sat next to Verice. Despite the chill outside, she was uncomfortably hot in her formal robes. When Esme had been christened, there had been an hour of ceremony, followed by feast. (In truth, that had been followed by vampires, but Magrat was determined to ignore that breach of etiquette.) It was the third morning of ceremony so far, and she'd seen no sign of a baby or of holy water.
By now, the angelic choir had grown hoarse.
Beside Verice, a king - seventeen or so, barely of age - was fidgeting, while the elderly Duchess beside Magrat, wearing a cartwheel ruff nearly as wide as her farthingale, made a point of demonstrating her attention to the ministers.
Between Magrat and Verice, young Esme stirred in her sleep. In the basket next to her, Verice III stretched sleepily, returned his thumb to his mouth, and closed his eyes.
Magrat wished she could join them.
In front, yet another minister of something took his place at the podium. "Your Majesties," he intoned, "allow me to offer you my official congratulations-"
Verice nudged Magrat, and she realized the minister had been replaced with another man. "You were snoring," he whispered.
Magrat nodded, stifling a yawn. "How much longer can this go on?"
"Much longer." He tilted his head toward the other edge of the stage, where a long line of men - plus two extremely stuffy looking women - stood. "All of them have yet to speak."
Magrat looked down at the still-sleeping Verice and made a decision. After slinging the baby bag around over her shoulder, she reached down and pulled him out of his basket. The boy, shocked, immediately began to fuss.
"Baby," Magrat whispered to the elderly Duchess beside her. "Sorry, I have a baby."
The Duchess nodded with more sympathy than Magrat would have expected. "I've had four myself," she said, pulling back in the pew so Magrat could step out. "Good luck."
"Thank you." Hunched over, Magrat stepped through the crowd. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Sorry. Baby coming through." She felt the eyes on the world on her as she slipped through the first door she found. It shut with a thud, and at that point Verice did begin to wail.
"Well, poo," Magrat said, glancing around the side corridor for some sort of table. She couldn't unbutton this dress one-handed, and the wide farthingale made it almost impossible to bend over to place Verice on the floor.
"Oh," said a voice beside her. "Here, let me take him." Magrat turned to see a dark-haired woman - one of the musicians, based on her dress - holding out her hands. Magrat passed Verice to her with relief, then began to unfasten the top of her dress. "Shh," the stranger whispered to Verice, humming an unrecognizable tune. Once Magrat had undone her dress, the woman handed Verice back.
"You couldn't stand the music either?" she asked, after Verice had latched.
Magrat finally looked up at her. "Oh," she said in surprise. "Your -" How did you address a Saint? "Your Holiness," she managed. She did her best to bob a curtsey - difficult, as her hands were filled with a baby. "I'm Queen Magrat of Lacre."
The Saint - and these people had funny views of who they were - didn't notice her breech of etiquette. "I told Selda that three days of singing was far too long for a choir, but she didn't listen to me. I finally got her to agree to give them a break this morning, but that means our third-best choir is performing, and-" The Saint threw her hands in the air with a note of exasperation. "That is what you get when you ask the third best choir to perform. It's better than the first-best choir damaging their voices, but I don't want to hear it." Only then did she deign briefly to meet Magrat's eyes, and Magrat did her best to look like she agreed.
"Er, yes," Magrat managed. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond to that. A sudden thought came to mind. "Are they using mallow root? It's good for a sore throat."
"I don't know," the Saint said thoughtfully. She cocked her head slightly. "I should talk to the physician." She stopped. "Anyway, I must be going. "But if you want to avoid another two hours of bad choral music, the atrium is that way. There's a few chairs there. It should be empty." And then she was off, leaving Magrat to stare in her wake.
The atrium was where Seraphina said it would be, but it wasn't empty. Magrat stepped out from a side entrance - what was it with these passages? - almost to run into a maid who was carrying a tray of sweets. "I'm sorry," she murmured automatically. Verice began to fuss at her breast, and the maid's eyes widened (did women here not breastfeed in public?) before she placed the tray down and rushed back into the hallway. There would be a reception later, Magrat remembered.
The buffet tables were already filled with delicacies. Iced imported fruits - some of which Magrat even recognized - were strewn about the tables. Two large tureens sat on one end of a table, next to a stack of tiny teacups. Empty baskets for rolls sat beside a bowl of butter.
Magrat hadn't realized how hungry she was right up until that moment. People would notice if she had a slice of cake, but perhaps if she had a truffle -
There was another figure at the sideboard eating when Magrat approached them.
A far too familiar figure.
"Nanny, what are you doing here?" Magrat hissed.
"Tasting canopes, same as you," Nanny said nonchalantly. She held out a petit fore. "Try this little cake, it's delicious." Her fingers were stained with chocolate.
"Yes, but-" Magrat stopped herself. There was a more important question. "Where's Granny?"
***
Esme Weatherwax was, at the the moment of Magrat's question, having what other people might call a bad day.
Not that Granny herself would call it a bad day. In her view, there were neither good nor bad days. Days were what you made of them.
But even she would have to admit that, by her own standards, this day was not going according to plan.
"Gytha Ogg," she muttered, as she dodged a cluster of lizards begging on a street corner. "You promised me quiet."
When Nanny had invited her to attend Our Edward's wedding, she'd expected a quiet hamlet or a seaside town. She hadn't expected a city just as large or as crowded as Ankh-Morpork.
Nor had she expected the inns to be packed for an official ceremony. As old as she was - and Granny was old enough to see that as a sign of respect rather than senility - she needed to rest, and five hours on a cramped attic floor, listening to a servent girl in the next room mumble prayers to the All-Saints for her lover's health, did not count.
The best witches were rarely tired, but Granny found herself yawning as she pushed through the crowds to the palace door.
"Royal entrance only," a guard told her.
Granny drew herself up onto her toes, so she could look the man in the eye. "Young man, I'm with the King and Queen of Lancre," she declared. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the door and continued walking. Confidence, Granny had found, was half of witchcraft, and she'd had plenty of experience bluffing on an empty hand.
"But Ma'am," the guard continued, sprinting after her. "I need their authorization to allow you in."
"Fortunately," Granny said, pointing into the foyer without looking, "the Queen of Lacre is right here." She met the young man's eyes. "Would you like to go and ask her yourself?"
"Er," the guard said, a bit flustered. "I'll take you at your word." And, like that, he was gone.
To her surprise (not that she would admit it), Granny found that the Queen of Lacre was in the foyer, standing right next to Nanny Ogg.
"Granny," Magrat said, in an irritable tone. "What are you-"
"I'm here for you," Granny said confidently.
Magrat opened and closed her mouth in confusion.
"You're a bit late," Nanny said, taking a truffle from a table in the otherwise almost empty room. "The chocolate is nearly gone."
"I don't hold by fancy foreign food. You can never tell what's in it," sniffed Granny, who considered herself lucky if her scrapple was made of mostly pork. "Especially not the covered types. If it's dipped in something, you know they don't want you to know what's inside."
"What's inside this one is nougat." Nanny put the half-eaten truffle on a plate and pushed it aside.
Granny tsked knowingly, and Nanny ignored her.
"We were just passing through," Nanny said assuringly to Magrat. The girl was clearly sulking. For all of Nanny's assurances, Magrat had clearly not been aware they were dropping by. "But we decided to check in on little Esme. And the young prince, of course," Nanny added after a moment.
And find a place to sleep in the palace, she might have added. Granny supposed that would be explained later.
At that moment, the main doors swung open, and a crowd of guests began to exit in their finery. "That's odd," Magrat murmured. "I thought the ceremony wasn't supposed to end for a few hours." The girl looked around at the other tables. "They haven't even brought out the roasts." She studied the crowd for a moment, then waved a hand at Verice, who was holding the hand of young Esme. "Over here!"
"Probably got tired of listening to ministers," Nanny said cheerfully beside her. "But if everyone is out, they're going to cut the cake."
"We thank you for attending this morning's ceremony," a wavering voice said. Granny looked at the balcony to see a young woman - the Queen, presumably, for no one else would tolerate that amount of finery - leaning on the arm of a young man. Despite being lathered in white powder, her face was quite red. As Granny looked on, a green welt blossomed on her cheek. "Please -"
"What's going on with her?" Magrat whispered.
The queen's voice had faded, but the man beside her spoke. "Please partake in refreshments. We will return."
While he was speaking, a dark-haired woman ran over to take the Queen's other arm.
"It looks like the Queen has taken ill," Granny said.
"Did you notice the green?" Magrat whispered. "Somewhere in Goodie Whemper's notes, she mentioned something about-"
"That wasn't what I noticed," Nanny said. "Look at the lovebirds. And I'm not talking about the King and Queen."
Granny turned her head to peer at them. The dark-haired woman was supporting the queen under her other shoulder. "I think there's a bit more to it," she said.
"Whatever is going on," Magrat said, "I'm sure it's none of our business." (*)
Under any other circumstance, Granny would have argued, but when Nanny's smirk broadened, Granny made a point of turning her back.
(*) This is wrong. Everything is a witch's business, if only so that it won't become the business of others. When a loaf of bread disappears from a shop window during a famine, it's up to a witch to learn the truth, if only so that more bread can go missing.
Many a girl has found her true fairy godmother to be not a plump old woman who arrives with pumpkins but the neighborhood busybody carrying a pessary and a bundle of herbs, to be drunk every month under the full moon (tradition, in this case, being a convenient source of timing).
(Deep down, Granny still considered Magrat a witch, and deep down, Magrat would still agree.)